


Bargains & Rituals

by DictionaryWrites



Category: Marvel, Marvel 616, Thor (Movies), Thor - All Media Types
Genre: Dubious Consent, Emotional Manipulation, Gaslighting, Kissing, M/M, Mixed Canon, POV En Dwi Gast, References to Norse Religion & Lore, Scars, Self-Esteem Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-28
Updated: 2018-04-28
Packaged: 2019-04-29 00:33:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14461224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DictionaryWrites/pseuds/DictionaryWrites
Summary: En Dwi is looking for his favourite little kitten, but Loki is justnowhereto be found, and En Dwi so hates to have to go looking for people.Excerpt:“What’cha doing out here, honey? You’ve been gone weeks – I was getting worried.”“It’s been four hours,” Loki says. Oh, shit, really? Hours, weeks – what’s the difference, really?“You didn’t call,” the Grandmaster says, watching as the rest of the candles douse themselves, one by one. “You didn’t write. You didn’t even tell Topaz where you were going!”“Yes, I did,” Loki breathes out, desperately. “Did you ask her?” The Grandmaster frowns, putting his hand on his chin. Did he ask Topaz? He doesn’t think he did. Ah, well. It’s hardly his fault Loki decided not to tell anybody where he was going.





	Bargains & Rituals

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah, this one's REALLY quite awful, so strap yourself in for all the warnings! I really love playing with this dynamic, but it's genuinely, uh, pretty awful, haha.

En Dwi Gast hasn’t seen Loki, uh… _All day_. Which is fine. It’s _fine_ , he supposes. But this… This is Sakaar. This is Sakaar, and it’s _his_ planet, and it’s meant to be, ha, fun, and how is he supposed to have fun without Loki there? Not that he can’t have fun without Loki, of course, he’s not dependent on the guy – he’s just a pretty little flavour of the day-week-month thing, but…

_Where is he?_

En Dwi shifts his neck upon his shoulders, feeling the bones _crack_ within him as his pupils disappear from his eyes, replaced by pure _white_. There are benefits to being, y’know, _him_. The Elders of the Universe each have their own talents, their own techniques, but they each have the very essence of the universe woven through their flesh, their blood, their bones, and that means magic? Ha. It’s easy. Child’s play. So easy it almost makes stuff _boring_ …

Until you want something from it.

He doesn’t see it, exactly, but he tastes the knowledge on his tongue, feels it in his brain like a half-forgotten memory, and then he is moving, his eyes filtering back to something more akin to the stuff these idiots like to see. People look at him with fear as he passes, disguised behind frenetic smiles and desperate eyes, and he feels a bloom of self-satisfaction in his chest as he walks from the room.

And Loki… Ha. Well. He’ll deal with that when he comes to it.

It’s been _days_ —

Hasn’t it? Time passes strangely on Sakaar. It _might_ have been days, conceivably. Could even have been weeks! Or maybe just hours. But the point is, when En Dwi turned his head, looking for his little _kitten_ , said kitten hadn’t been there, and that, ha, that rankles. That, uh, that _bothers_ him. It takes En Dwi barely a thought, and he is no longer in the great palace of Sakaar: instead, he is… elsewhere. The use of dimensional transitways – that is to say, magical teleportation – isn’t really supported on Sakaar. Those that try are swiftly turned to dust and ozone on the air, because the magic is packed in too tightly, made to shred anybody that tries to _pieces_ , so how the Hell Loki managed to get out here, well, En Dwi just doesn’t know.

He stares down at the little island from his place hovering far above it, and he turns his head, looking at the horizon. The main continent, where pretty much everything on his funny little planet goes on, isn’t even in _sight_. How the Hell had Loki come out here? There’s certainly no ship, or En Dwi would have seen it fly, and he couldn’t have _swum_ out here…

En Dwi slowly descends to the beach of greying sand that is spattered with washed up debris, keeping his magic tightly packed into himself, to ensure he won’t be _sensed_. It’s best to get the jump on Loki, now, isn’t it? His little kitten sure can babble if you get him on the backfoot, and if he’s planning some kinda coup, some ridiculous revolution, well—

It’s not a _melting_ offence. The guy is adorable, and if he didn’t keep En Dwi on his toes, he wouldn’t like him so much. But En Dwi would definitely have to… Tell him off. Maybe even with a little light torture. But, hey, that’s not personal – that’s just the rules, kitten, that’s just the way the cookie crumbles when you think of overthrowing Daddy and taking over his planet.

En Dwi’s feet do not touch the sand or the grass, instead hovering a few inches above it – gross, _grass_. He doesn’t want to touch that. Why would he want to touch grass when there’s, like, you know, _carpet_? This stuff is damp, and weird, and… Alive, and not in a sexy way. En Dwi hates plants. They’re so creepy. They don’t ever _say_ anything, no matter how long you talk to them, and En Dwi isn’t stupid – he knows they _can_ talk back, if they really want to, they’re just stuck in their own little world, looking just at other trees, and bushes, and… That kinda shit.

Lolo is sitting in a clearing, atop a circle of stone that he _definitely_ made himself. He sits cross-legged, his hair ( _shit, it’s not greased back. Can En Dwi’s kitten really have hair that looks so nice, and fluffy?_ ) tied up in a messy bun at the top of his head, a few strands hanging around his face. En Dwi, completely invisible, peers in to look at Loki’s face, and he feels himself _gasp_. Oh, oh, _oh_ , his kitten really has been hiding stuff from him! Loki has sox candles before him, and is murmuring softly in an ancient language En Dwi could understand, if he really wanted to, but doesn’t see the point in focusing in on. Each candle has a different scent, herbs and spices melting down into the wax of them as the wick shortens and shortens, and Loki’s face is strangely illuminated by the flickering lights, and _oh_ , that face…

Loki’s skin is as pale as marble, as it ever is, but he’s stripped away one of his fun little illusions, his little glamours: Loki’s mouth is a mess of twisting, gnarly pockmarks and tears, showing where the flesh beneath and above his lips was once ragged and torn, the scars raised and pink with the slightest _tinge_ of blue, and Loki’s eyes—

Guess En Dwi isn’t the only one with tricks. Loki’s eyes are a milky white, with only the ghosts of blue irises remaining in place, and around his eyes, fusing his eyelids together, burning away from of his eyelashes and even raised up around his brows and the tops of his cheeks, there is more scarring. This isn’t like the rips and wretched bits around Loki’s lips, where a needle or a knife have bitten into the flesh, oh no: this is something completely different. Some liquid has spattered over his face, either molten metal or some kinda chemical, spitting pain around his eyes, and, ha, well, _stars_ …

He’s so pretty.

Don’t get En Dwi wrong – nice, clean expanses of pale flesh are okay, and there’s a loveliness to spreading a guy out beneath who looks like a marble statue, but he’d been almost getting _bored_ of Loki’s simple, handsome face, his hard angles, his clean, uninterrupted skin, but _this_? Scars? On his mouth, on his eyes? Jeeze, this is… This is personality right here. Loki’s palms are facing down to the circle of stone, his elbows rested on his knees and a magic spreading out from beneath his fingers, weaving its way through the seven lights, and En Dwi sees that there are scars on his lovely, slim little hands, too – there are shiny burn marks, and cuts, and even teeth marks on his _right_ hand, and on Loki’s left hand, ooh, there’s even a little chunk of flesh missing from the meat of his heel. Loki’s scarred mouth is still moving, but the words he’s saying are barely more than a whisper, now, and when he finally stops, one by one, the candles start going out, or—

No. One candle goes out. Then two more in a pair, together, they go out. Another candle seems to be _wanting_ to go out, straining to douse itself, but it then it comes back stronger than the others, flaring on the air.

Loki sighs, seemingly with relief, but then one candle goes out. Loki stares at it, his pupils suddenly visible on his eyes in complete colour, his expression a mask of grief and terror, and then En Dwi blows out another, and another—

Loki is on his feet, his hands clenched at his side, and fire crackles at the edges of the clearing, his mouth shifting, his jaw _cracking_ as it widens, bearing teeth… “Oh, that’s so _cool_ ,” En Dwi murmurs, visible all at once, and he sees Loki’s indignant fury rapidly become fear as he moves back away from him. “Could you do that this _whole_ time? So… _Wolfy._ ”

“Grandmaster,” Loki exhales, falling back onto his ass in the grass, scrambling back from En Dwi on his hands and knees, and oh, _oh_ , that just hurts! What, his kitten is so frightened of him? Ha. He probably should be. “I didn’t know you were there.”

“What’cha doing out here, honey? You’ve been gone _weeks_ – I was getting worried.”

“It’s been four hours,” Loki says. Oh, _shit_ , really? Hours, weeks – what’s the difference, really?

“You didn’t call,” the Grandmaster says, watching as the rest of the candles douse themselves, one by one. “You didn’t _write_. You didn’t even tell Topaz where you were going!”

“Yes, I did,” Loki breathes out, desperately. “Did you ask her?” The Grandmaster frowns, putting his hand on his chin. _Did_ he ask Topaz? He doesn’t think he did. Ah, well. It’s hardly his fault Loki decided not to tell anybody where he was going. Loki looks at the Grandmaster like the Grandmaster kills people just for taking a break, and, well, okay, he’s done that _before_ , and is definitely going to do it again, but… Not to Loki. “Grandmaster, I intended not to upset you, nor wound you, I merely needed some time to—”

“Time to what? Light candles? You can light candles at home.” It’s a little test, but when En Dwi says _home_ , Loki doesn’t even flinch, doesn’t so much as twitch – he hasn’t been here all that long, but already Sakaar has imprinted on him, filled him to the brim with that desperate little desire to _belong_. Loki thinks of Sakaar, of En Dwi’s palace, as _home_ , and he doesn’t even seem to realise.

“Too many people in the vicinity interfere with the spell,” Loki whispers, pitifully. En Dwi would almost feel bad for shocking him so badly if, uh, you know, he was into that whole _guilt_ thing. En Dwi reaches out, touching at Loki’s cheek, which is as cold as stone (it always is), and despite the fear for his life (so adorable), Loki leans minutely into the tingling warmth of En Dwi’s ephemeral touch, looking up into En Dwi’s face as if his last act is gonna be giving En Dwi those _lovely_ , blue eyes… En Dwi touches Loki’s mouth, tracing the rough, wretched marks of the scarring on either side of his lips, and Loki’s eyes close tightly – oh, _that_ makes him flinch.

“What’s that, honey?” En Dwi asks in a soft, easy whisper. “You hid these from me, but they’re so _handsome_. What else are you keeping secret from me, huh?” Loki wrinkles his nose, disgust showing on his face, and oh, _no_ , En Dwi doesn’t like _that_ at all. He squeezes hard on Loki’s jaw, feeling the strong bone and muscle want to give way beneath the force of his strength, and Loki whimpers.

“Just kill me,” he says. “Don’t mock me, Grandmaster, _please_ , just—"

“ _Kill_ you? Why would I do that?” En Dwi asks, and he lifts Loki up by his jaw alone, pinning him against one of these stupid little trees, and Loki tries to gasp and chokes on it when En Dwi grips his throat instead. It’s comically easy to lift Loki from the ground, his feet kicking for a second before they settle as if stood on solid ground and— Ugh, yeah, that little _Skywalking_ trick again. It was silly of En Dwi to forget. “You’re my _favourite_ , Loki. I don’t want, ha, I don’t want to kill you.” The look that comes into those pretty blue eyes is positively unthinkable, magical in their hope, and desperate desire – wherever the Hell Loki was before he was in Sakaar, it _really_ did a number on him, because just a little bit of praise and Loki turns to putty in his hands, melting for En Dwi without so much as a _look_ at the melting stick.

“You don’t mean that,” he whispers.

“Don’t tell me what I do and don’t mean, honey,” En Dwi advises, his tone positively dripping with venom, and Loki bites down on one of those scarred and scattered lips of his, his teeth worrying a spread of thin skin and scar alike – that must _hurt_. “I love these little scars of yours. What, you don’t?”

“No, Grandmaster,” Loki murmurs.

“How’d you get ‘em?”

“I…” He can see the pretty little cogs in that brain turning, clicking against each other, grinding the gears and turning wheels, and then Loki seems to decide on truth: “They sewed my mouth shut.”

“Who did?”

“The dwarves of Svartalheim.”

“How come?”

“I tricked them.” Little Lolo can be so _chatty_ when he wants to be, when he feels like it’ll get him somewhere, but that pretty little mouth of his has clamped shut like a steel trap, as if he’s scared the wrong truth will send En Dwi over the edge. But who knows? Maybe he’s right! En Dwi’s always known he can be a _little_ bit predictable.

“And the eyes?” En Dwi pushes.

“At the end of the universe, there will be venom dripped into my eyes,” Loki says in a shaky tone.

“Ooh, those scars haven’t even _happened_ yet, huh?” En Dwi asks, and then he chuckles, touching over a droplet of scar tissue at the top of Loki’s cheek. Divinities, they’ve got such weird little notions of destiny, all tangled up inside ‘em, and that means stuff like this – _future_ wounds, that haven’t even happened yet, but they’re nursing all the same! “They’re very nice. Really add, ha, a little _personality_ to that pretty face of yours. I love ‘em. You got more scars?” En Dwi’s hands are moving away from the column of Loki’s throat, now, instead sliding down to Loki’s hips, and he feels the young god trembling under his touch, his back pressed as tightly to the bark behind him as it can be. That is just— Delicious. “Under these leathers?”

“I don’t like my scars,” Loki says, slightly desperately.

“How come?” En Dwi asks. Elders don’t _have_ scars. There’s a regenerative capability for his body that just, ha, doesn’t really allow for little blemishes and ugly bits, and it’s almost a shame – it’s so interesting, the stories scars bring out at parties, during orgies, even during executions! And here’s Loki, scarred from his pretty little head to his pretty little toes, and he doesn’t _like_ them.

“They’re ugly,” Loki says.

“Nah,” En Dwi disagrees. “They’re _stories_.” That seems to throw Loki for a loop, hitting him hard in his twin sternums, and his eyes become far away for a few moments, as he digests that little nugget of wisdom. Oh, but Loki is just so pretty when he’s thinking, when he’s tired, and En Dwi has _one more_ question, just one more, and then they’ll go home (home!) and he’ll take Loki to pieces in front of an audience, see if he can’t make Loki _cry_. He so loves it when Loki cries. The way he just rips to shreds, tears on his cheeks, his body shuddering, his mouth gasping: En Dwi’s only managed it once so far, but Loki had clutched at him for the rest of the _night_ , as if he would die without En Dwi’s hand around his neck, and that neediness is just what En Dwi is in the mood for tonight. “What’s with the candles?”

“Merely a ritual,” Loki says, and En Dwi can see he is beginning to pull his confidence back together, attempting to gain control over the situation. “Such a paltry concern, dearest Grandmaster, pay it no heed – we ought to Sakaar—”

“Don’t tell me what to do, Loki,” En Dwi whispers, and Loki’s confidence shatters like glass. Ha! Such _fun!_

“Oh, no, I didn’t mean to—”

“I know, I know,” En Dwi says, laughing and patting Loki’s cheeks. “You’d never tell me what to do, would you?”

“No, sir.”

“You’d never try to, I dunno, lead a coup?” Loki’s pale face goes even _paler_ , somehow, and En Dwi’s laugh is loud and resonant before he says, “Tell me what the candles were for.”

“They represent… Connections. The candlelight represents a life yet lived.”

“ _Six,_ huh,” En Dwi whispers, letting a little wounded upset pass into his tone. Is it real? Maybe a little bit. “Nine connections, and you haven’t mentioned _one_.”

“My children,” Loki whispers. Something catches in En Dwi’s chest, drying out his mouth.

“You got kids, huh?” he asks, his tone casual, and Loki nods his head slowly. “Two of the lights went out.”

“Yes,” Loki agrees. He says it sadly, quietly – _mournfully_. En Dwi _hates_ it when people are sad. It’s just so… Selfish, you know? Brings down the mood. Even when he brings Loki to the brink of sobs and pushes him over, it’s just to see him shake apart, just to get him closer to embracing the pleasure En Dwi _wants_ him to embrace, and this whole candle thing, ugh, it’s just a _bummer_. “Pray, Grandmaster,” Loki murmurs, and his hands touch against En Dwi’s shoulders, his fingers tracing over the soft fabric of the robes. “Allow me to please you tonight. An orgy cannot compare to _me_ , when my devotion is assured.” Oh, he makes such promises, and his eyes are lit up with a smile, even as he tries to shove down all the _hurt_ he’d shown before, all that nasty… Stuff.

“I don’t know,” En Dwi says, sounding unconvinced. “I’m not really in the mood…” Loki’s brows furrow, a little frustration showing in his eyes, but he doubles down, leaning to drag his scarred mouth over En Dwi’s neck, and _oh_ , ooh, that’s a different sensation. Little bit rougher, little bit _weirder_ …

“I am a shapeshifter,” Loki points out, softly. “I might take on a different form for you, whichever you would like, or I might, ah… You’ve always said you wished I would drink more, perhaps engage in some of your recreational, uh, chemical highs. We could try some together.” En Dwi feels triumph _burst_ in his chest – see, this is what you get not _forcing_ something, let it bubble beneath the surface, let your pretty little pets come up with ideas on their own.

En Dwi thinks of it, thinks of stringing Loki out on a cocktail of drugs, making his skin so sensitive he screams if you breathe on him, making him come twenty times over, making him see stars whenever he closes his eyes, making him _desperate_ , hungry, for En Dwi’s body on his own, make it so that going without En Dwi’s touch is so painful it makes him wail.

“Okay,” En Dwi says, lowly, “but this is _my_ night, Loki. This is you making this up to me. No saying _no_ , or complaining if I ask something of you—”

“No, Grandmaster, never,” Loki says earnestly, and stars, isn’t he the prettiest, stupidest little thing you’ve ever seen? He just pours leverage into your lap like he _needs_ to.

“Come on then, kitten,” En Dwi purrs, and he already thinks of the best way to tie Loki over a table, so that he can’t move, can’t touch himself, can only take the _pleasure_ … Oh yes. Oh _yes_. “Let’s go home.” This time, as En Dwi slips his fingers into Loki’s own, something does show in Loki’s face, some almost-ghost of wanting to leave, but that’s all it is – a ghost. It is replaced by a mix of contentment and mild fear, just what the Grandmaster _loves_ to see, and they begin to make their way back to Sakaar.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Check out [my Tumblr](http://dictionarywrites.tumblr.com) for more, or if you want to send in a request.


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